Ash Wednesday, 2021
I was the kid who looked into the future and thought the world would get better
Maybe all kinds of violence wouldn’t stop
But it would slow down
Education would pick up
Speaking to picking up, litter large and small would be... yeah.
Now most things I buy are plastic
Recycling took a step forward in the day
Now it needs to run a marathon each day
As a grade school student, I couldn’t imagine a nation with such divisions
Like then, I thought opinions would remain opinions
Not battle fuel for left/right wars that to date have no end
I’m exhausted in my stomach
I try to ignore this
Try to set my hope on tomorrow
But heavy lifting, which is all I seem to do these days, is wearisome
Because I see a grit I wish no one would see
A rawness
A roughness
A cancer
A sin like a factory town’s film over snow, on the skin, in the soul
My boyhood era was not ideal
Rose-colored glasses only last as long as the paper ones in 3d movies
I could ignore worrisome, Henny Penny, “I don’t know what’s happening to the world” chatter
Because it was chatter
Maybe now it is not
Maybe now—this year—too many months into a deadly, world-changing virus
I can get back to that word sin
That word sin
And not see as much as feel the distance between me and God
For I am here
Anchored
Angered
And God is not far away
I am
I will welcome ashes on my forehead today
The sooty, smearing mark of my transgressions
The public showing of my private messes
Messes that, like contamination, never fully clean
I will show who I am
Sinner
I will say who I am
Sinner
I will not sit in my burlap and ash heap
I will not stay down
I will not rumble or rattle my own prison door
I will not let the devil dance
I will find my Savior
And shout His name for you to hear
For me to hear
And, in honesty, realize this year especially
That His forgiveness is my freedom
His death is my life
And I will live my life
As I pray you live your life
Knowing where we came from
Sin
And knowing where we are going
Salvation
Jesus is no stranger
But, paradoxically, do I know Him?
Or do I know of Him?
The questions are not daunting or distressing
Instead, they are dissolving a me that was
Into the me I will be
I will be only who I am
If I welcome you with me
See my cross
I will see yours
And somehow in one of His endless, timeless miracles
Our crosses will be yokes
And we will hear, understand (in part), and revel in His words:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”